


Whumptober 2019

by Shortculler (Starculler)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Whump, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 15,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starculler/pseuds/Shortculler
Summary: Whumptober 2019 CollectionSummaries of and links to each prompt are found on the first chapter.
Kudos: 11





	1. Prompt List

**Author's Note:**

> Figured it was about time I got these on AO3, especially since October's creeping up again. Everything's hopefully been backdated correctly, but if there's any errors then let me know.
> 
> All pieces are also found on my [Tumblr](https://starculler.tumblr.com/)!

##  [Shaky Hands](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62460187#workskin)

**Fandom:** Boku No Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
**Characters:** Midoriya Izuku, Yagi Toshinori  
**Warnings:** Blood, Death  
**Excerpt:**

> Izuku sucked in a sharp, shaking breath. The taste of sour, stagnant air and that distinct metallic tang made his stomach churn uncomfortably. He fumbled for a grip on Toshinori’s side, hands shaking and slick with blood. Tears pricked at his eyes and he sniffled wetly, but he couldn’t stop. He had to move. Had to think. There had to be something he could do. Some way to win. Some way to save－

##  [Explosion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62460442#workskin)

**Fandom:** Young Justice; [(Dis)placed AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106442)  
**Characters:** Dick Grayson  
**Warnings:** Blood, Gore, Talon!Dick Grayson, Healing/Regeneration  
**Excerpt:**

> White-hot pain lances through Dick’s head and crackles in blinding flashes behind his eyelids, rolling down his body in agonizing waves. He curls onto his side, knees drawn up to his chest with his hands tucked in tight as he presses his cheeks into the too-cold tile with a moan. He doesn’t care that the cold bites at his exposed skin or saps the little strength remaining in his limbs. All he can focus on is the way his skin burns against the room’s chilled air. The way the smell of him, burned flesh and blood and hair, prods at the nauseous pit in his stomach until acid churns up through his chest and into his throat where he forces it down with a pained gag. 

##  [Delirium](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62460697#workskin)

**Fandom:** Batman  
**Characters:** Tim Drake  
**Warnings:** Fear Toxin, Vomit, Blood  
**Excerpt:**

> _Fear Toxin._ Logically, he knows that’s what it is. Knows the symptoms and what to expect when Scarecrow presses the plunger on the syringe at his neck. But logic does little for him the minute it hits. 
> 
> Tim feels it like ice on his skin. His whole body trembles with teeth chattering force and his vision blurs and swims until the sparsely-occupied warehouse he’s being held in is little more than a mess of swirling gray and dim, non-colors. He feels his breath hitch and stutter in his chest. Feels his heart race, quickly picking up speed as his adrenaline spikes.

##  [Human Shield](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62460922#workskin)

**Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
**Characters:** Aizawa Shouta, Bakugo Katsuki  
**Warnings:** Death, Blood, Injury, Bone Fracture  
**Excerpt:**

> “Let him go,” Shouta snarled, hand at the capture weapon wrapped around his neck and shoulders. “Now,” he said, injecting as much malice and authority into his voice as he could when the villain made no move to release his student. 
> 
> The villain sneered, an ugly twist of the lips that bared his already bloody teeth, and dug the edge of his knife hard against Bakugo’s throat. Bakugo winced, tipping his head back just enough to relieve some of the pressure and pain on his bruised throat, but made no other move. Both of his arms hung, limp and useless, at his sides, swollen and bruised and undoubtedly painful.

##  [Gunpoint](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461090#workskin)

**Fandom:** Batman  
**Characters:** Jason Todd; featuring Bruce Wayne  
**Warnings:** Gun Violence, Implied Death, Implied Suicide  
**Excerpt:**

> Jason fingers the trigger of his gun － his gun because of course those twisted fucks would get off on forcing him to do this with his own goddamn weapon － and tries to regulate his erratic breathing. He’s chock full of … something. He can feel it in the way his skin itches and his vision’s just this side of too-sharp. In the way his heart beats too fast and too loud in his chest, but maybe that’s just because of the fucked up situation they’ve collectively landed themselves. 
> 
> “Five minutes left, Hood.”

##  [Dragged Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461186%22)

**Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
 **Characters:** Midoriya Izuku, Kaminari Denki  
 **Warnings:** Electrocution, Traitor!Kaminari Denki  
 **Excerpt:**

> Izuku screamed, voice raw and rough, as lightning crackled and buzzed under his skin. His limbs locked up mid-jump and he dropped nearly ten feet to the ground. He hit the pavement shoulder first, heard the crunch of bone before the pain struck a second later, a burning, throbbing fire that clawed its way down his arm and up his shoulder. He choked on the pain, coughing up bile and spit as he writhed. Nausea curled in his stomach and his head throbbed with every pounding, pained, pulse in his arm.

##  [Isolation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461249)

**Fandom:** Young Justice; [(Dis)placed AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106442)  
**Characters:** Dick Grayson  
**Warnings:** Blood, Gore, Talon!Dick Grayson  
**Excerpt:**

> “Let me out!” Dick screams, voice hoarse as he slams his fists into the reinforced door. “Please let me out! Let me out!” His eyes burn and his throat feels raw. His hands are bruised and red from how hard and often he’s hit the door. “Please, please, please,” he begs, pushing his forehead up against cold steel. “I’ll be good,” he says and his voice cracks. “I’ll be good, please, I’ll-I’ll be g-good.”
> 
> No one comes. The camera in the corner of the room blinks red, the only light in the cold, cramped closet-sized room.

##  [Stab Wound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461354#workskin)

**Fandom:** She-Ra (2018)  
**Characters:** Adora, Catra  
**Warnings:** Blood, Implied Death  
**Excerpt:**

> Adora groaned, hands probing at the fiery point of pain in her side. An accident. She pressed at her stomach, feeling the blood bubble up and soak into her shirt, her red jacket long discarded during the fight. Tears pricked at her eyes. It had been accident, right? Her breathing stuttered. She blinked, watching the hilt of the knife rise and fall as she breathed, heavy and ragged and forcefully slow. She slid her gaze up with some effort to Catra’s pale and stricken face. 

##  [Shackled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461471#workskin)

**Fandom:** Batman  
**Characters:** Dick Grayson  
**Warnings:** Talon!Dick Grayson, Dead Body, Implied Post-Civilization, Memory Issues  
**Excerpt:**

> Talon stalked the cave. Slow, even, silent steps that dragged him through half-remembered passageways, huge carved out caverns filled to bursting with decaying mementos. His eyes trailed the trinkets and toys: a rusted robotic dinosaur, a corroded penny nearly as tall as the space it was kept in, molded playing cards with a faded jester’s face printed on them. He lingered at the car, black faded into a dull gray with age, damaged and dismantled. Discarded in pieces as if someone had intended to go back and fix it one day. He brushed his fingers along the hood, left open a crack to allow dust to collect inside it. 

##  [Unconscious](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461570#workskin)

**Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
**Characters:** Yamada Hizashi, Aizawa Shouta  
**Relationships:** Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi  
**Warnings:** Blood, Hospital  
**Excerpt:**

> Hizashi sighed, sunk low in the uncomfortable hospital chair he’d refused to vacate since he’d been allowed in the room. He was tired. Everyone who passed told him so. Pointed out the heavy, purple-blue bags under his eyes and the mess of stubble on his face. The fact that he hadn’t so much as changed his clothes, his jacket discarded but the rest of his Present Mic persona still present, if wrinkled and more than a little worse for wear. All he’d managed to do since last night was wash out the gel in his hair and swallow down a small meal that had tasted like ash.

##  [Stitches](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461645#workskin)

**Fandom:** Batman  
**Characters:** Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne  
**Warnings:** Blood, Injury, Needle  
**Excerpt:**

> Dick sniffled, blinking away the tears pooling in his eyes as he pulled the stitch tight. He whimpered when Bruce twitched under his hands and he had to catch his lower lip between his teeth to keep from making any more noise. They were hidden in a condemned and boarded up old building, Bruce groggy and wounded but doing his best to coach Dick despite it, and he refused to be the reason they were found. 
> 
> “S’alright,” Bruce slurred, reaching back with a heavy, limp hand to clumsily pat at Dick’s knee. “Y’r doin’ good, Di－R’bin”

##  ["Don't Move"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461720#workskin)

**Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
**Characters:** Yagi Toshinori, Midoriya Izuku  
**Warnings:** Unwilling Suicide, Mind Control  
**Excerpt:**

> “Don’t－” Midoriya’s voice shakes. He swallows hard like his mouth is dry and edges back another step, closer to the steep drop behind him. His expression remains blank and dull, as if he’s been replaced by a doll. “Don’t move.”
> 
> Toshinori feels numb as he watches his student － his successor, his boy － teeter on the bridge’s edge. The water roars beneath them, almost deafening as it rushes down the river’s length, but otherwise the world is silent. Still.

##  [Scars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461873#workskin)

Updated version [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24621205)  
**Fandom:** Batman ; [Stray!Dick AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780132)  
**Characters:** Dick Grayson, Selina Kyle, Bruce Wayne  
**Warnings:** Scars, Injury Mention  
**Excerpt:**

> Dick sat in front of the full-length mirror in his room, propped up against the wall rather than hung, and prodded at the wad of gauzy bandages on his shoulder. The scratch had been deep, from the top of his shoulder to his shoulder blade, and had hurt badly enough that he’d nearly cried when Selina cleaned and bandaged it. He prodded it again, wincing when he applied too much pressure. Yet another scar to add to his ever growing collection, not that he minded it much. A life on the streets would have probably done worse to him.

##  [Pinned Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62461990#workskin)

**Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
**Characters:** Uraraka Ochako, Midoriya Izuku  
**Warnings:** Blood, Injury  
**Excerpt:**

> Izuku defeats the villain. Beyond their dimmest hope, their wildest expectations, he succeeds. He springs from the ground, air splitting and shifting in his wake, and roars as he aims his fist at the monster’s face. His body swings, pitching forward with the force, and the villain crumbles with a deafening crack. And then he falls, limp and twisting in the air, and even from so far below it’s obvious his arms are broken. Useless, even if he were conscious. 
> 
> Ochako watches, helpless, as it happens.

##  [Bleeding Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62462116#workskin)

**Fandom:** The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  
**Characters:** Link, Sidon, Unnamed Zora  
**Warnings:** Blood, Injury, Death  
**Excerpt:**

> Link screamed as an arrow pierced his thigh. He crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, muddied dirt and grass in his mouth. Everything ached and his breath came in hard, quick, and ragged gasps, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t give them an inch. He fumbled to his hands and knees, crawling and clawing his way forward as he failed to get his legs under him. His gloves tore on a sharp, rocky outcrop. The pain of it bled into the background, drowned out by the deep, throbbing ache in his leg and the warm blood soaking into his torn pants. 
> 
> Tears burned his eyes as his pursuers’ footsteps drew nearer.

##  [Numb](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721983/chapters/62462254#workskin)

**Fandom:** Young Justice ; [(Dis)placed AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106442)  
**Characters:** Bruce Wayne, Dinah Laurel Lance, The Team  
**Warnings:** Implied Character Death  
**Excerpt:**

> “Rob stormed out last night. We thought he went home.”
> 
> Bruce blinked. He clenched his jaw. One of his fingers twitched. Numbness spread from the tips of his toes all the way up to his head. He felt unbalanced, as if the ground had opened up beneath his feet and swallowed him whole. His mind reeled. Every endless potential scenario flitted through his mind in quick succession. Every worst case scenario played out in horrifying, vivid detail and didn’t end until the last, lingering image: Dick, dead on the ground with a bullet in his chest and left to rot at the end of some godforsaken alley. 


	2. Shaky Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Boku No Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
>  **Characters:** Midoriya Izuku, Yagi Toshinori  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Death
> 
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188064788879/whumptober-2019-no-1-shaky-hands)

Izuku sucked in a sharp, shaking breath. The taste of sour, stagnant air and that distinct metallic tang made his stomach churn uncomfortably. He fumbled for a grip on Toshinori’s side, hands shaking and slick with blood. Tears pricked at his eyes and he sniffled wetly, but he couldn’t stop. He had to move. Had to think. There had to be something he could do. Some way to win. Some way to save－

“It’s alright, my boy.” Toshinori’s voice was a strained, wet, reedy whisper. Blood dribbled from his lips, his sunken features even more haunting in the room’s stark lighting. “It’s alright,” he soothed, straining one trembling arm up until he brushed his knuckles weakly over Izuku’s cheek. His wobbly smile did little more than pull a choked sob from his student. 

No. Izuku’s mouth moved, but there was no sound. He curled his fingers around Toshinori’s too-thin wrist, easing some of his mentor’s strain and effort. All he could do was listen to Toshinori’s wheezing breath. To the wet gurgle in his chest as he tried to suck in air despite the blood quickly filling his lungs. To watch his chest heave and stutter around a weak cough, his body spasming around the action while forcing more blood from his wound. Izuku pressed his lips into a thin line, carefully squeezing Toshinori’s wrist between his fingers, and watched that smile pull down into yet another pained grimace.

“I’m s-sorry.” His voice wavered, pushed forcefully out from around the lump in his throat, too-loud in the room’s deathly quiet. “It’s m-my fault that-that you’re,” he choked, voice hitching on a sob. Dying, he didn’t say. Couldn’t make himself so much as mouth the word. 

Toshinori blinked slowly, blue eyes dull and unfocused for a moment before settling on him. Izuku stiffened as his mentor’s gaze lingered briefly on his neck, the quirk-suppressing collar chafing and too tight, lit up and active from the moment Shigaraki had clamped it around his throat. Guilt bubbled hot and heavy in his chest. If he’d only been stronger. Faster. None of this would have happened if only he’d listened. Stayed behind with the rest of their class instead of succumbing to that pit of boiling rage in his stomach the minute he’d laid eyes on the villains. On the terrified child in Shagaraki’s grasp, one finger delicately lifted to keep them from turning to dust. He’d felt phantom fingers on his own neck, the fear of disintegration thick in his throat, and had reacted. Thrown himself forward to his own demise. To Toshinori’s death. 

“It’s alright,” said Toshinori again, twisting his wrist in Izuku’s grip just enough to urge him forward. 

Izuku’s eyes burned as he shuffled closer, not willing to deny Toshinori anything even if all he wanted to do was curl up in a corner and wish he’d never been born. Or stand and, quirk be damned, punch his way through the stark-white wall in front of him in the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, some god would take pity on him and let him smash his way through cement and cinderblock with just enough time to get help. Instead, he half-crawled closer to the wall, knees slogging through the thick, shiny puddle of blood that had pooled on the tile until he was close enough that he could curl over and lay his head on Toshinori’s chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured around a heaving sob into Toshinori’s shirt, hands still holding onto his mentor’s wrist. Toshinori hummed, before his chest stuttered with another painful cough. 

He felt his mentor’s body shift with effort and panicked, frantic in his efforts to convince him to be still until he felt Toshinori’s long, frail fingers in his hair. They carded through his curls, gentle and weak, and Izuku felt what little of his composition remain crumble. He wailed, loud, wet, hitching sobs into Toshinori’s chest, soaking his shirt with salted tears as he apologized over and over and over until his words and his wailing were nearly one and the same. He cried until the energy drained from his body and he could do nothing more than further slump forward onto his mentor’s thin frame. Until even the grip on Toshinori’s limp wrist was too much.

Until he was alone in the room, hunched, weak and protective, over the corpse of the man who’d believed in him.


	3. Explosion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Young Justice; [(Dis)placed AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106442)  
>  **Characters:** Dick Grayson  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Gore, Talon!Dick Grayson, Healing/Regeneration  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188093412597/whumptober-2019-no-2-explosion)

White-hot pain lances through Dick’s head and crackles in blinding flashes behind his eyelids, rolling down his body in agonizing waves. He curls onto his side, knees drawn up to his chest with his hands tucked in tight as he presses his cheeks into the too-cold tile with a moan. He doesn’t care that the cold bites at his exposed skin or saps the little strength remaining in his limbs. All he can focus on is the way his skin burns against the room’s chilled air. The way the smell of him, burned flesh and blood and hair, prods at the nauseous pit in his stomach until acid churns up through his chest and into his throat where he forces it down with a pained gag. 

There’s no noise in the room beyond his own stuttered, heavy panting and the deafening, unrelenting tone in his ears, but even that is starting to fade. He doesn’t know how he’s still conscious, and certainly doesn’t want to be as he feels the familiar, deep, hollow ache in his bones that means a break is knitting itself back together. Several breaks, probably. The thought almost makes him laugh, but his smoke-choked lungs and burns on his face, chest, and even inside his mouth make it too difficult. All he manages is a reedy wheeze followed by a wet cough that pushes a thin line of blood oozing from between scorched lips. 

Amazingly enough, his eardrums heal before his bones, but the near-silence is less of a comfort than he was hoping for. He hates it, even like this. The way it stretches and fills the space, making his skin, what’s left of it, crawl. He never used to mind silence much. Growing up with Bruce, especially on long stake-out based patrols, had made him almost used to it. But this isn’t the same comfortable quiet shared between Batman and Robin on patrol or even Bruce and Dick in the manor after a fight. This is the silence before something goes horribly wrong.

Or, in this case, _after._

It almost makes him wish they’d walk into the room already, even if it means more pain for him. Instead, he’s forced to lay there and wait. Seconds. Minutes. A whole hour passes before he’s well enough again to breath and move, even though his skin’s still split and he’s bleeding sluggishly from every open, unhealed sore on his body. But he can, and that’s what matters. 

Dick shifts until he’s nearly sitting, groaning when he moves too fast and the barely-healed skin on his back tears, but at least he has his trembling arms under him. He blinks a few times, wincing when the too-bright fluorescent lights buzzing overhead nearly blind him until his newly-sensitive eyes adjust. He watches with no small amount of detached horror as the skin on his hands, blistered and broken and charred at the edges, slowly stitches closed with hardly a scar left behind. The new skin is just as sallow and ashen as he’s grown used to seeing, with the same thin, black veins he’s had poking through his skin since he woke up in this place. He feels sick.

It takes more effort than he’d care to admit to pull his eyes away from his own healing flesh and the nauseating sense of wrong that churns in his gut, but he manages. Instead he stares at the other end of the room, careful to avoid the one-way mirror etched into the wall in front of him. The chair he’d sat in, just off-center in the room’s rectangular space, is warped and melted. A mess bolted to the floor in its place. The floor around it scorched black and scuffed, but otherwise unharmed. It had been him they’d been testing, after all. Not the floor or furniture. 

The sight of it all, however, still makes him want to scream. Still makes his chest ache where they’d tied the vest neatly to his frame without preamble before scurrying from the room. The grins on their faces and the excited glimmer in more than one set of eyes had more than tipped him off to what was to come. And even so he’d been powerless. Is still powerless. Something he’s reminded about the moment the door on the far side of the room whooshes open.

“Robin,” says the perky woman in charge of his testing. He doesn’t answer, body tense as he sits in a smudging pool of his own blood. “That was wonderful. You did a good job!” Her praise rankles, but Dick keeps his mouth shut. He knows better now. “It only took an hour and a half this time, but we want to be thorough, of course, so we’re going to run trial two in about an hour,” she says as she glances at the tablet in her hands, a smile curling her lips before she turns to the two armed guards who trail in after her. “Make sure he’s washed and prepped before taking him to Room E-10. Two charges this time,” she mumbles to herself as she turns on her heel. 

Dick pales and his mind blanks at her words, so much so that the guards are forced to grab him by the arms and bodily drag him from the room. He winces at the strain, new muscle stiff and aching under healed skin, but doesn’t resist. Can’t. Not when all he can think about is the weight on his chest from the vest, the heat on his skin, and then the sudden burst from the explosion caving in his sternum, flames licking at his skin and muscle as the concussive blast rips him apart. 

And he has no choice but to do it again.


	4. Delirium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Batman  
>  **Characters:** Tim Drake  
>  **Warnings:** Fear Toxin, Vomit, Blood  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188114428959/whumptober-no-3-delirium)

_Fear Toxin._ Logically, he knows that’s what it is. Knows the symptoms and what to expect when Scarecrow presses the plunger on the syringe at his neck. But logic does little for him the minute it hits. 

Tim feels it like ice on his skin. His whole body trembles with teeth chattering force and his vision blurs and swims until the sparsely-occupied warehouse he’s being held in is little more than a mess of swirling gray and dim, non-colors. He feels his breath hitch and stutter in his chest. Feels his heart race, quickly picking up speed as his adrenaline spikes. Every nerve spikes, every hair stands on end, every inch of him comes to life with the sudden spike of _fear,_ thick as mud as it courses through his veins. 

He bites back a moan, teeth digging into his lower lip in a vain effort to keep himself centered. To keep himself aware. He flexes his fingers and pulls at the bonds at his wrists, but all he feels is a flicker of fire as coarse cables dig into his bare skin, like he’s pricking himself on a thorny rose. Scarecrow laughs and the sound, warped and oozing, draws his focus. The villain’s form flickers in the shadows and Tim’s neck aches as he cranes it to stare up into that horrid mask. He thinks he sees maggots crawl across it, one digging aggressively into Scarecrow’s neck before it disappears beneath bulging flesh.

He tries to focus. Pull himself together enough to listen when Scarecrow starts to talk, but he can’t. The shadows pull in tighter, clawing across the floor to invade his space and their every slithering shift claims his attention. He shuffles back, holding his breath as a wisp of darkness streaks toward him, a hand, inky black, clawing closer and closer and he can’t move fast enough tied up on the floor like this, but it’s at his ankle, curling and twisting and holding and －

A hand, delicate but solid, grasps his chin and jerks his face back to Scarecrow. The shadows dissolve the minute he’s no longer paying them attention, but a few still flicker at the edges of his vision. He can hear Scarecrow’s voice － tense, angry, then pleased, crooning － but none of the words make sense. They drip through the air, mangled sounds too muffled too properly hear behind the pounding rush in his ears. And before he can so much as process that he’s actually being told something, whatever it is, Scarecrow steps away. 

His form drags along the ground as he walks away, liquid and spilling like he’s made of maggot-infested mud. Tim gags when Scarecrow’s hand deforms and drips, liquid flesh and blood left in his wake. Despite the way he watches Scarecrow decay, splotches of himself soaking into the cement underfoot, he calls out. Yells. Begs to not be left alone. By the time he’s managed to work out how to make his mouth move, sounds garbled and warped by a tongue too thick to be his, Scarecrow is gone. 

He’s alone.

He’s alone. He’s alone. He’s alone. He’s alone, but not for long. The shadows surge up around him, stretching and growing until the warehouse is more black than gray. There are hands in them and he watches, wide eyed, as they fight to grab him, clawing free from their inky confines. One wraps around his ankle and the skin _burns_ where its fingers touch. He screams as another paws at his knee. His arm. One curls around his cheek, gnarled and twisted with age, and the sound that tears from his throat as skin boils and smokes under the touch is more of a shriek. 

Bile, thick and hot and venomous, claws up his throat so fast he barely has time to lean forward before he vomits. He chokes on a sob between heaving and gasping for air. The smell of burned flesh and blood mixes with the sour scent and nearly sends him back into painful dry-heaves, but he swallows back the urge and instead shuffles back on his knees. He’s shaking, sweating, and the minute he’s sure he won’t fall into his own puddle of vomit, she flops over, limp and boneless. 

His head hits the cement harder than he expected, but the cool stone is a relief nonetheless. He spends what feels like an eternity there, eyes screwed shut and panting between gritted teeth. A long, thin moan pries itself free from his mouth every time a shadow brushes his exposed skin, but he’s adjusting. He’s adjusting. The thought is comforting. He’s adjusting. It’s not so bad. Maybe Crane’s latest formula is a bust. Just a few horrible minutes at the beginning before it peters out. He’ll be fine.

_He’ll be fine._

“Tim?” Bruce’s voice hits him like a brick to the head.

He blinks, but can’t move enough to see anyone. His body aches and he feels simultaneously too damp and like he needs to chug a gallon of water, and he wonders briefly how long his eyes were closed. He can’t tell, but his eyes burn with tears at sheer amount of relief Bruce’s voice brings with it. He opens his mouth to reply, but no sound come out. He tries again. And again. And again. Panic seizes him, stabs at his chest until he’s floundering for breath.

“Tim? Are you here?” Bruce’s voice echoes. He can’t tell if it’s closer or farther than before, but－

But he can’t speak. No matter what he does, he can’t make a sound. Desperation claws at his throat. He thrashes. Pulls at the cords on his wrists and ankles. Pounds on the cement with his feet when he can. But the next time Bruce calls out, it’s faint. Distant. And Tim realizes with dread, heavy and pounding, that Bruce is leaving. 

_No!_ He screams but there’s no sound. _Come back!_ There’s no Bruce. _Come back._ There’s nothing but the hollow ache in his chest, the burning flood of salty tears in his eyes, and the deafening roar of silence. _Come back._

“Come back,” he manages to say after what feels like an eternity. It’s small and strangled, barely a murmur, but it’s a sound. It’s his voice and he’s grateful nonetheless. “Come back,” he says again, just as small. “Come back. Come back. Come back.” 

His voice is hoarse and trembling, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t bring himself to stay in the silence anymore. So curls into himself as much as he can, pulling his knees in closer as he lays on the cement floor, and begs a Bruce that was probably never there to come back even as spiders crawl out of his mouth. Even as the shadows come back, this time with faces. His family’s. His friend’s. All horribly familiar, but just wrong enough. He babbles at them anyway. Responds to their jabs, wincing when a few reach out and he has to smell his skin burn and feel it bubble again and again and _again_ until he thinks he’ll taste the iron tang of blood on his tongue for the rest of his life.

Because anything is better than the silence. Anything. Even this madness.

Even death


	5. Human Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
>  **Characters:** Aizawa Shouta, Bakugo Katsuki  
>  **Warnings:** Death, Blood, Injury, Bone Fracture  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188135208557/whumptober-no-4-human-shield)

“Let him go,” Shouta snarled, hand at the capture weapon wrapped around his neck and shoulders. “Now,” he said, injecting as much malice and authority into his voice as he could when the villain made no move to release his student. 

The villain sneered, an ugly twist of the lips that bared his already bloody teeth, and dug the edge of his knife hard against Bakugo’s throat. Bakugo winced, tipping his head back just enough to relieve some of the pressure and pain on his bruised throat, but made no other move. Both of his arms hung, limp and useless, at his sides, swollen and bruised and undoubtedly painful. One of his thighs bled sluggishly from a nasty gash, the skin split far enough to expose the muscle and meat underneath. He looked wrecked, too pale and uncharacteristically subdued, and it was all Shouta’s fault. He grit his teeth and shifted forward a half step, heels grinding into the dirt underfoot.

One wrong move and the situation would end in disaster. 

The thought weighed heavily on Shouta. Made it near impossible to so much as breathe. He tightened his grip on his capture weapon, unwinding it just a fraction more. His eyes darted from the villain to Bakugo and back again, avoiding the line of trees to his left where he knew Midnight was trying to sneak past in the hopes of disabling the man using her quirk. He just needed one chance. An opening. Anything to get his student out. 

Shouta tensed as the villain did, both of them suddenly too still. Alarm shot through him in a rush of adrenaline, a sharp itch that crawled across his skin like bugs. Uneasiness settled in his gut, a heavy, nauseating weight. Something was wrong. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the otherwise empty park for whatever had set the villain off. For what had set him off. But there was nothing. No one in the park but them. 

_Fuck._ His eyes widened, realization striking him like a fist to the face. He ground his teeth and scanned the trees, not bothering with subtlety when the cat was out of the bag. Midnight wasn’t in there.

“Guess your friend met mine,” the villain said, a malicious grin fixed on his face. Shouta practically growled as the villain pulled Bakugo back a few steps. “What’cha gonna do now, hero.” The villain spat the word “hero” like a curse, jerking the knife in his grip until blood beaded on Bakugo’s neck. 

Shouta _moved._ Without thought. Without a plan. It was the single most illogical action he could have taken, but that was his student － one of his kids － and he’d be damned if he was forced to sit back and watch anymore harm come to the boy. Faster than the villain could react, Shouta tossed out one end of his capture weapon. It wrapped around Bakugo’s waist and Shouta bit his tongue when he jerked it to the side, Bakugo’s smothered cry of pain as the knife slit a visible, but shallow, line across his neck ringing in his ears. 

Sloppy. Risky. Stupid. But Bakugo was safe, already on his feet in the corner of Aizawa’s eye after having tumbled to the ground in a heap. Shouta grinned, baring his teeth at the villain as he pulled back his capture weapon. As much as he wanted to turn on his heel that very moment to check over his student, Shouta pushed forward instead. The villain’s capture had to come first and, with Midnight out of commission and a mystery second assailant lurking nearby, he had to work fast. Work fast and pray that Bakugo would be safe in the meantime. That some other hero had gotten the alert and would be there soon.

“Let’s see how you do,” Shouta snarled, rearing back a fist and slamming it into the villain’s face as he yelled, “without your human shield you piece of sh－” 

_Bang_

Sloppy.

Risky. 

Stupid.

Shouta tumbled with the villain, the sound of his head cracking on the pavement the only satisfying thing about the situation. He rolled with the momentum, scant inches away from the groaning villain, and scrambled from his back onto his stomach. Pain lanced through him from some indecipherable place between his head and chest. He heard someone scream. An explosion. Liquid, warm and thick and red, saturated his shirt and dripped heavily onto the pavement. 

He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. His vision swayed, graying at the edges. His mouth felt dry. A sharp, trilling ring started in his ears. His head pounded in time to his racing heartbeat, a nauseating, rabbit-beat in his chest. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a gurgling wheeze, spittle and blood dribbling down his chin.

Stupid.

Footsteps, slow and even, approached him and he hardly had the energy to turn his head. 

Stupid. 

He watched the villain he’d punched stand, hair matted with blood from his fall and more than a few teeth knocked loose from his mouth. The newcomer － the second villain, his mind supplied － slowed and stopped his approach only when he was an inch from Shouta. 

_Stupid._

The muzzle of a gun pressed against his head, shoving it roughly as the second villain crouched before him. Her smile was tight, with a row of razor-sharp teeth. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with glee as she watched him struggle to hold himself up.

“We’ll be sure to send your student along with you shortly. You won’t be alone for long, Eraserhead.”

Shouta opened his mouth. To spit or respond, he wasn’t sure. 

He never got the chance to.

_Bang_


	6. Gunpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Batman  
>  **Characters:** Jason Todd; featuring Bruce Wayne  
>  **Warnings:** Gun Violence, Implied Death, Implied Suicide  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188152974981/whumptober-no-5-gunpoint)

Jason fingers the trigger of his gun － _his_ gun because of course those twisted fucks would get off on forcing him to do this with his own goddamn weapon － and tries to regulate his erratic breathing. He’s chock full of … something. He can feel it in the way his skin itches and his vision’s just this side of too-sharp. In the way his heart beats too fast and too loud in his chest, but maybe that’s just because of the fucked up situation they’ve collectively landed themselves. 

“Five minutes left, Hood.” That same irritatingly nasal voice that’s been taunting him all night blares through the speakers wired throughout the room. “Hurry, hurry,” it taunts and Jason has never wanted to punch a disembodied voice in its stupid, smug face more than he does now.

“Fuck.” _Fuck._ He raises his gun. Lowers it. “Fuck.”

They want him to choose. Point, shoot and kill one person to save the rest. It shouldn’t be an issue. It should be easy. But it isn’t. It can’t be. Not when the choice is between members of his own goddamn family. Maybe － definitely － the choice would have been a non-issue once. When he was mad at the world. Mad at the Bat. Pit-madness in his veins, in his eyes, bleeding down into his fucking soul. But he hasn’t been pit-mad in ages, and the anger had all but bled out after years of their stubborn feud. 

“Fuck,” he spits. The hand holding the gun at his side shakes. 

The clock ticks down to four minutes and Jason feels like he’s back in that warehouse. Tied up and bloody, dragging himself across the floor as the Joker’s bomb ticks down to the last seconds of his life. Hoping that Batman will crash through the door at any moment and save him. But he hadn’t then, and he won’t now. No one’s going to save anyone now. Not unless Jason puts a bullet through someone’s head. 

That’s the game, after all. He gets to stand here, gun in hand, and choose while his family sits there, backs to him, and wait out the cruelest game of Russian Roulette they’ve ever played. He’s wasted an hour already, trying to find a way out. A loophole. Anything to make sure everyone gets out alive and unscathed. All he’s bought himself is an earful of arguments from one person or another, each one vying to win the role as willing sacrifice to make sure the rest of their family gets to leave intact. 

Jason grits his teeth, and feels the dull ache of a sizeable bruise on the side of his face make itself known again. He, like the others, had been knocked out and woken up in this fun house － and he can only thank whatever god exists that it isn’t a literal fun house or some other clown-related shit because he highly doubts he’d be half as composed if that were the case. With three minutes left on the clock, though, even that brings him little comfort, if any. 

“Fuck this shit,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. He can taste his own blood on his tongue. The bile in his throat. “I’m not shooting anyone you piece of shit coward!” He yells, waving the gun at the camera set up at the front of the room right in the middle of the row of captured vigilantes. The speakers crackle as the coward tuts at him like he’s some petulant child and not a man with a sizeable body-count. 

“Hood.” Jason’s head snaps to Bruce the instance the man’s rough, rasping voice cuts through the room. No reprimand in the tone. Only a deep and heavy resignation. Choose me. Bruce doesn’t even have to say the words for Jason to know that this is an order. A general protecting his soldiers. 

A father protecting his children.

Jason swallows around the lump in his throat. His eyes burn and prick with unshed tears. Sweat beads down his face. His mouth is dry and he feels almost feverish. He watches the back of Bruce’s head with wide eyes and feels a shudder run down the length of his spine. He hears Dick’s voice first, Cass’ and Stephanie’s, Damian’s and Duke’s, Babs’ too, but their protests are drowned out by the drumming roar of his pulse in his ears. It’s the right call. He knows it is. Bruce would rather die than lose any of his kids again. It’s the right calls but －

He levels the gun at Bruce’s head. 

They’d finally reconciled. 

The clock ticks down. 

It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but it was better. 

A minute left. 

Alfred had smiled when he’d joined them for dinner. 

Jason fingers the trigger.

He remembers how they fell apart when Bruce was gone. Thought dead by all of them but Tim. 

He swallows.

Batman is a symbol, but Bruce is their father. 

Thirty seconds.

And Jason’s the black sheep here.

He closes his eyes.

He remembers death. Cold and empty. A void. An endless, yawning pit of nothing. 

“I’m sorry,” he says with all the weight and meaning he’s never been able to put into the word until now, with the muzzle of his gun pressed up against his temple.

“Son,” he hears Bruce say, voice cracking. But there’s no time left.

Jason pulls his finger back. The muzzle burns. The gun kicks in his hand. And then there’s nothing.


	7. Dragged Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
>  **Characters:** Midoriya Izuku, Kaminari Denki  
>  **Warnings:** Electrocution, Traitor!Kaminari Denki  
> [TUmblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188174440506/whumptober-2019-no-6-dragged-away)

Izuku screamed, voice raw and rough, as lightning crackled and buzzed under his skin. His limbs locked up mid-jump and he dropped nearly ten feet to the ground. He hit the pavement shoulder first, heard the crunch of bone before the pain struck a second later, a burning, throbbing fire that clawed its way down his arm and up his shoulder. He choked on the pain, coughing up bile and spit as he writhed. Nausea curled in his stomach and his head throbbed with every pounding, pained, pulse in his arm. 

A foot pushed against his ribs and rolled him onto his back. He groaned, lips pressed together in an effort to swallow down the shriek of pain bubbling up in his throat as the movement jarred his arm and shoulder. He stared up at the person above him, uncomprehending. Tears he couldn’t blink away blurred their figure until they were little more than a smudge of color. They leaned forward, smudged, blond hair tilting to one side. He struggled to keep his breathing even. 

“Sorry, Midoriya,” they said, and there was real regret in their voice. 

_Fuck you,_ he wanted to snarl but all that came out when he opened his mouth was a pained whimper. Another jolt of electricity nearly knocked him out, vision graying at the edges as his body seized up. It felt like fire under his skin, in his limbs, spreading until there wasn’t a single part of him that wasn’t in some form of pain. He gasped when it ended, dragging one greedy, ragged gulp of air after another into his burning lungs. Static buzzed through his head, nearly replacing the roar of blood in his ears. 

“Really wish it hadn’t come to this.” His attacker sighed. “You were a pretty cool dude, but you know too much.” 

“Why?” he croaked when he’d managed to temper some of the pained haze he’d lost himself in. 

Some vague, far away part of him wondered when they’d started moving － his legs in his attacker’s hands as he was dragged across the asphalt, deeper into the shadows of the alley he’d tried to escape. They paused, grip on Izuku’s legs tightening as they shrugged. He held his breath as he tried to move one of his arms without them noticing. It had been a while since he’d broken a finger, but he figured one more point of pain wouldn’t make much of a difference at that point.

“Told you. You got too close.” Izuku blinked at the forced carelessness in their tone. “Nice try for a distraction, though.”

Shit. Izuku opened his mouth, to curse or deny the accusation he wasn’t sure. All that came out was another scream as they activated their quirk. His skin and pants were scorched where their hands touched, forcing electricity up through his limbs in a sharp, concentrated burst of what felt like lightning. 

Sorry,” they said again, but it was muffled and distant in Izuku’s ears. “For what it’s worth, I think you’d have made a great hero.” He wanted to throw up, the pain in his legs making his head spin. “You just －” He wondered when his arm had gone numb, whether it was still attached － “poked your nose in the wrong place.”

“Kami…nari,” he gasped out, but he couldn’t dredge up the energy to say more. Kaminari looked at him, eyes wide. Pained and scared, before that careless veneer settled back over his features.

“It’s better if you’re not awake for this.”

Electricity crackled through him, a blinding, white-hot fire. Izuku shrieked with pain until the world turned black and he knew nothing else.


	8. Isolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Young Justice; [(Dis)placed AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106442)  
>  **Characters:** Dick Grayson  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Gore, Talon!Dick Grayson  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188197888631/whumptober-no-7-isolation)

“Let me out!” Dick screams, voice hoarse as he slams his fists into the reinforced door. “Please let me out! Let me out!” His eyes burn and his throat feels raw. His hands are bruised and red from how hard and often he’s hit the door. “Please, please, please,” he begs, pushing his forehead up against cold steel. “I’ll be good,” he says and his voice cracks. “I’ll be good, please, I’ll-I’ll be g-good.”

No one comes. The camera in the corner of the room blinks red, the only light in the cold, cramped closet-sized room. He screams. The metal groans, but doesn’t budge as he pushes and punches with every ounce of enhanced strength. He feels the skin on his knuckles split, but the blood smudging his skin and the door is lukewarm at best. He yells, curses, pushes and pries at the hinges and edges until his fingernails tear. The damage heals near-instantly, the grounding pain disappearing as quickly as it comes. White-hot fury boils in his chest so strong it makes him nauseous.

He pulls back his fist and slams it forward. He feels the bones in his hand crunch on impact, but he swallows down the pain. He punches again. And again. And again, until it’s a mangled, unidentifiable mess of twisting fingers, blood, and bone. It throbs, swollen and tender, as he lets it finally fall to his side. He swallows back the bite of bile in his throat, panting through the dizzying pain as sweat beads down his face. His hair, shoulder-length now, sticks to his face where it’s come free from the careful bun Natasha had helped him tie it into last night. 

It was supposed to be a fun night. A night out － his first since he’d been rescued － to celebrate his progress. His first steps to integrating back into society, and they’d ruined it. Snatched him in the confusion of an attack on the Avengers. He’d felt someone grab his arm and hadn’t had time to react before they’d knocked him out. When he’d woken up, he was there. Here. Back again in the hands of them people who’d turned him into a monster.

The cold tile burns the soles of his feet, and the chill air soaks in through his skin and down to his bones. Exhaustion drags at his eyes and, finally, pulls him down. He slides along the door until he’s little more than a limp heap on the floor. He pulls his injured hand close to his chest and watches, lip trembling, as the damage heals. It’s slow in the cold, but not so much that he can’t notice the little changes. The way his fingers straighten as the bones set themselves. The small, blue veins pulling back together. Fresh skin pulling over open wounds and new muscle.

He sighs, breath clouding up around his face from how cold it is. Colder than when he’d first woken up. He knows from experience that it’ll continue to get colder until he finally slips into a sleep so deep that he may as well be dead. He bangs his head weakly against the door, energy spent. He wonders, as his eyes start to droop, how long they’ll keep him here. He’s never done well in isolation. It’s why they put him in here in the first place. 

The camera blinks its light at him and he knows they’re watching.

As his eyes close and his pulse slows, he can’t help but wonder if the Avengers will find him again. Save him again. Or maybe, _maybe,_ it’ll be Bruce. Somehow. Someway. The thought brings a soft smile to his lips, even if it is impossible. There’s no way that Batman can find him in another world. Another universe. But still, the tiny kernel of hope remains. 

Dick falls asleep, cold but hopeful.

No one comes.


	9. Stab Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** She-Ra (2018)  
>  **Characters:** Adora, Catra  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Implied Death  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188218409321/whumptober-2019-no-8-stab-wound)

Adora groaned, hands probing at the fiery point of pain in her side. An accident. She pressed at her stomach, feeling the blood bubble up and soak into her shirt, her red jacket long discarded during the fight. Tears pricked at her eyes. It had been accident, right? Her breathing stuttered. She blinked, watching the hilt of the knife rise and fall as she breathed, heavy and ragged and forcefully slow. She slid her gaze up with some effort to Catra’s pale and stricken face. 

“I,” Catra started. Stared. 

Where the knife had come from, Adora didn’t know. The fight had been nasty, each of them separated from their respective groups and Adora from her sword. From She-ra. But she’d been so angry and Catra wouldn’t listen, so she’d pressed on. Fists and claws and teeth. Every fair and dirty move they’d ever learned until they’d been left grappling in the dirt. She hadn’t realized when Catra had drawn or picked the knife up in that mess. Not until it had been buried between her ribs, pushed in with so much fury and force that it had sent Adora stumbling back. And then she’d fallen on it, tripped on a rock and crashed onto the injury, knife and all. Adora had screamed and Catra had continued to stare, face growing paler with every passing second.

“Cat－ra,” she gasped out, trying to push herself up. 

The pain in her side spiked and she couldn’t bite back the sob that spilled from her mouth. Blood and bile crawling up her throat as her back arched before sagging back to the ground once it faded. She laid there for a while, panting and her eyes screwed shut, feeling the slick warmth on her skin. On her clothes. When she opened her eyes again, she whimpered. One hand reached up and out towards her former friend as if on instinct. As if her helplessness had brought to life some old, needy part of herself that she thought she’d locked away. The part of her that yearned for Catra. For her friend. For comfort. 

Catra stared, wide-eyed. Her ears pressed back, hidden in her wild mess of hair, and her tail lashed nervously behind her. Adora’s heart fluttered when Catra took a hesitant step forward, reaching forward. And then she stopped. Adora felt ice creep into her veins, dread building in her chest. She made a noise, high and pained, and tried to move again only for the sharp, throbbing pain to knock her back down. Catra swallowed, mouth dry and throat like sandpaper, and took a step back. 

Panic gripped Adora. Catra was going to leave her. The realization was like being dunked in ice water. A harsh return to reality. A reminder that she and Catra had burned their bridges and scattered the remains. She tried to speak, to beg or plead or maybe yell. She wanted her friend back. Wanted Catra to leave. Wanted Glimmer and Bow. Wanted Catra to hold her hand and tell her everything would be alright. But nothing came out except a ragged, wet, rasp. 

Tears blurred her vision and fell down her cheeks, stinging the cuts and scrapes she’d amassed. Her lower lip trembled as she fumbled to form the words stuck in her throat. She pushed, openly crying as waves of bursting pain radiated from the wound, until she was on her side, propped up on her elbow. She heard Catra’s steps, muffled and distant behind the ringing in her ears. And she pulled. And pushed. And dragged her body across the dirt, using rocks and cracks as leverage to pull herself forward until, finally, her strength gave out. 

Silence settled around her, heavy and suffocating. She whimpered. Her vision swam. She tasted dirt and blood on her tongue. And she laughed. It was a thin and wheezing noise, more self-pity than amusement. And why not? It was _funny._ She was going to die here, alone, because Catra had left her. Stabbed and run with her tail between her legs while Adora had tried to drag herself back to Glimmer and Bow. To her friends who would find her, cold and lifeless in the dirt. And all she could think about, despite it all, was how she’d wanted Catra there to comfort her. To hold her hand and smooth back the hair pulled free from her ponytail and tell her that everything would be alright. 

She laughed a little harder, chest aching as she wheezed, and listened to the wind whisper he name with Catra’s wet, wavering voice.


	10. Shackled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Batman  
>  **Characters:** Dick Grayson  
>  **Warnings:** Talon!Dick Grayson, Dead Body, Implied Post-Civilization, Memory Issues  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188239967326/whumptober-2019-no9-shackled)

Talon stalked the cave. Slow, even, silent steps that dragged him through half-remembered passageways, huge carved out caverns filled to bursting with decaying mementos. His eyes trailed the trinkets and toys: a rusted robotic dinosaur, a corroded penny nearly as tall as the space it was kept in, molded playing cards with a faded jester’s face printed on them. He lingered at the car, black faded into a dull gray with age, damaged and dismantled. Discarded in pieces as if someone had intended to go back and fix it one day. He brushed his fingers along the hood, left open a crack to allow dust to collect inside it. 

He tilted his head first one way and then the other, trying to picture the person who’d once worked on it. Perhaps some small bird clad in red, scowling, with with their tools spread around them on the ground. Oil smudged their nose and there was humor, perhaps, but not from the bird sat on the cave’s heated floor. Talon frowned and retracted his gloved hand. The blurry-faced bird faded with the loss of contact, and he moved on.

The entrance to the main cavern was lined with glass displays full of costumes, and here, too, he chose to linger. He pictured lights framing them from below, and plaques not faded and fallen off at their bases. The costumes in the primes, neat and reverently arranged behind unbroken glass. A snarling white-streaked head, smelling of leather and gunpowder and anger as they stared at one in particular. The first of many. Talon continued on, hands smudging the dust and grime on each case except one left empty and abandoned. Its black and blue remains lay shredded on the ground among the case’s shattered glass. 

Lights flickered and died as he trailed into the main room, but his eyes didn’t need it. He wondered if his eyes had ever needed the light to see, but the thought was gone before he could think on it for long. His attention was drawn, instead, to the mess he’d been sorting through for however long he’d been coming here. He blinked, head tipping to the side as he surveyed his progress. 

Gym equipment had been sorted to one far corner, mats and weapons piled against one wall until he could bother to find where they’d once been stored. Gadgets and similar devices had been relegated to a long table nearer the center which he’d had to right from where it had been left turned over. The chair in front of a large computer had been fixed after a long while of meticulous fiddling before he’d found how it was meant to be fit together. The computer itself was a lost cause, an adult sized hole in its screen and its interior torn to shreds. 

He had spent a long time imagining the people who had mingled there, among the clutter. Girls in blacks. In purples. With fiery hair and working legs. A boy who smelled of exhaustion and coffee and the bitter tang of loneliness. Another in yellow and so painfully bright. A man of shadows and misery who’s face had, perhaps, once been nothing but kind. He’d wondered, briefly, if they would have startled at the sight of him. The thought had been quickly discarded － there was no use entertaining the reactions of blurry-edged phantoms who had perhaps never lived outside of the fantasies he sometimes invented. The Court would have punished him for it. He kept imagining anyways.

Talon turned from those “finished” sections of the cave to a spot near the long, narrow, stone steps. An old elevator set into the wall had captured his recent attention, but he’d done little more to it than pry its sliding door open. The tall, rectangular lift inside had been cleared of dust and he’d done his best to affix the metal banister along its walls back into place. He didn’t have to work hard to picture the well-dressed, elderly man who’d once ridden inside it. The body had been old an decayed, crumpled in a heap with its chest marred by gruesome gauges, and its legs splayed out so its foot kept the elevator’s door from fully closing. Its shotgun had fallen scant inches from its fingertips, perhaps knocked away when its assailant had gone for its heart. 

It had been strange to find the cave’s only definitive inhabitant. Bodies and dried blood and wide, endlessly staring eyes had never bothered him before. Any discomfort of them, if such a thing had ever existed within him to begin with, had been stripped from him in the maze. But that old, frail, decaying corpse had pulled at something inside of him. His chest had seemed to flutter for a moment in some fit of compassion or perhaps pity. He wasn’t sure, but he’d had plenty of time to read from the library’s-worth of books rotting away in the half-fallen manor upstairs.

He’d carried the body carefully in his arms, picked it and its gun up on a whim, and carried it out to the manor’s overgrown yard in the early night. He’d dug it a grave, prying the dirt loose with his fingers until only his head had been visible from the body-sized hole. The body had been laid into it with care, gun cradled to its chest as if meant to keep it safe from any intruder who’d dare to dig it up, and then covered. By the time he’d finished, dawn had broken over the horizon and Talon had retreated back down to the cave in silence. 

The elevator felt empty without its corpse. Incomplete. Even the living phantom image he conjured up in his mind fell flat to the physical body he’d buried, but he refused to dig it up even if the solitude chaffed. After all, he was Talon. Last of his kind after setting fire to the chambers where his brothers and sisters had lain in their icy coffins. Last of a city reclaimed by nature in the absence of its people. Shackled to a cave and a manor and a corpse in its grave for no discernible reason except an order given to the Talon before him as he’d slowly frozen over in his own place of rest until its malfunction had freed him some indeterminate amount of time later.

Talon stepped inside the elevator’s lift, silent and stone-faced, to fiddle with the ruined panel to the left of its open doorway. He replaced what buttons he could, intact ones pilfered from the wrecked city not more than a few miles from the manor, and lamented how he’d never know if these, like the city’s elevators, would chime if he pressed them.


	11. Unconscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
>  **Characters:** Yamada Hizashi, Aizawa Shouta  
>  **Relationships:** Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Hospital  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188262658871/whumptober-2019-no10-unconscious)

Hizashi sighed, sunk low in the uncomfortable hospital chair he’d refused to vacate since he’d been allowed in the room. He was tired. Everyone who passed told him so. Pointed out the heavy, purple-blue bags under his eyes and the mess of stubble on his face. The fact that he hadn’t so much as changed his clothes, his jacket discarded but the rest of his Present Mic persona still present, if wrinkled and more than a little worse for wear. All he’d managed to do since last night was wash out the gel in his hair and swallow down a small meal that had tasted like ash.

A nurse had dimmed the room’s lights as much as possible for him hours ago, urging him to sleep if he wasn’t going to leave. And he’d tried. Leaned back in his chair and, when that didn’t work, slumped forward with his head pillowed on his arms atop the bed. He’d managed a restless hour until the blood and screaming and the crumpled, beaten, _lifeless_ body in his arms had startled him awake. Habit and instinct were the only things keeping him from crying out and damaging something, or someone, with his quirk. 

He’d been out of his chair the instant he’d woken up, only vaguely aware that he was in the hospital and not back out there. Not kneeling on the dirt, bloody and bruised and tired, but also despairingly desperate as he pressed his hands into a wound on Shouta’s chest that just wouldn’t stop bleeding. He hovered now, over the bed. Over Shouta, checking every visible inch of him. His chest rising and falling, rhythm long and slow as the mask over his face fogged on every exhale. His face, smooth and expressionless in sleep except for the tiny, permanent furrow between his brows. 

Shouta’s hand was warm when Hizashi grabbed it, folding it carefully between both of his as if it would break. He spent some time just standing there, watching Shouta breathe, and holding his hand before, finally, letting himself fall back into his chair. Hizashi’s body shook, the lump in his throat thick as he tried to swallow down the sudden rush of … something. Panic. Grief. Anger. His eyes burned with unshed tears as he pulled Shouta’s hand towards him, pressing his long, limp fingers to his mouth. 

He should have been faster. Done more. Been better. He blew out a watery breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he could have done something. Prevented this somehow. He pressed a kiss to Shouta’s fingers, to the small, gold band identical to Hizashi’s own. They didn’t usually wear them on their hands, choosing instead to keep them hidden for the sake of, if not his own then, Shouta’s privacy. But they’d gone out to dinner － a date night, the first in a long time so they’d worn their rings the right way. And, of course, halfway through they’d been called in for an emergency with only enough time to put on their costumes before they’d been out, taking separate routes so as not to rouse suspicion. 

Hizashi hadn’t even known that Shouta hadn’t put his ring back on the chain he wore under his capture weapon. Not until he’d been watching his husband bleed to death on the ground, hands clawing weakly at Hizashi’s arm and his eyes wide as he’d apologized. Hizashi had hardly heard it in the chaos, but he’d read Shouta’s lips clearly enough. 

He clutched Shouta’s hand a little tighter, bent over the bed and listening to the heart monitor’s slow and steady beeping. And he reminded himself that Shouta was alive. Even if they weren’t sure whether he was just unconscious or … or worse. He was alive. 

“Please,” Hizashi murmured into Shouta’s hand, his voice somehow too-loud in the oppressive silence. “Please wake up.”


	12. Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Batman  
>  **Characters:** Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Injury, Needle  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188283364381/whumptober-2019-no-11-stitches)

Dick sniffled, blinking away the tears pooling in his eyes as he pulled the stitch tight. He whimpered when Bruce twitched under his hands and he had to catch his lower lip between his teeth to keep from making any more noise. They were hidden in a condemned and boarded up old building, Bruce groggy and wounded but doing his best to coach Dick despite it, and he refused to be the reason they were found. 

“S’alright,” Bruce slurred, reaching back with a heavy, limp hand to clumsily pat at Dick’s knee. “Y’r doin’ good, Di－R’bin”

Dick frowned, pushed at Bruce’s shoulder so he’d sit properly again, but said nothing. He let Bruce slump sideways, shoulder to the grimy wall they’d chosen to huddle against, and waited until Bruce had settled his hands back on the cracked and ruined cowl on his lap before pressing resuming his work. His hands shook as he held the hooked needle aloft, free hand pressed to Bruce’s back as he pushed the edges of the gash as close together as he could. He swallowed hard as he pushed the needle through and pulled the string. Bruce made no noise, hadn’t as Dick had stitched closed the first or second wounds － deep, diagonal slices across his back, three in total － but Dick could feel the way Bruce’s muscles spasmed in pain every time. 

“A-Almost done, B,” Dick said with as much forced nonchalance as he could muster. As if he hadn’t just spent the last hour terrified, dogged by a gang smart enough to get the drop on Batman. Terrified that Bruce would pass out － he refused to think about Bruce dying － before he could help him. “I’m sorry,” he added after some time, voice small.

“Not y’r fault.”

_But it was._ He didn’t say it aloud, pressing his lips into a thin to keep the words from tumbling out instead. He was the one who hadn’t noticed something was off. The one who’d gotten himself caught first in the ambush, not fast enough to dodge under their grabbing hands. It was his fault Bruce had gotten distracted. Caught. Hurt, even though they’d barely laid a finger on Dick. 

Instead, they’d made him watch. Tied to a chair and helpless with a knife to his throat in warning, screaming as they had their fun. A shot, point blank, to Bruce’s thigh had brought Batman to his knees. A bat to the back of him sent him sprawling to the floor. Another blow had cracked the cowl. The third left Bruce limp and groaning. 

He sniffled again, wiping blood off his hands － bare, they’d taken his gloves － before beginning the next stitch.


	13. "Don't Move"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
>  **Characters:** Yagi Toshinori, Midoriya Izuku  
>  **Warnings:** Unwilling Suicide, Mind Control  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188312195951/whumptober-2019-no12-dont-move)

“Don’t－” Midoriya’s voice shakes. He swallows hard like his mouth is dry and edges back another step, closer to the steep drop behind him. His expression remains blank and dull, as if he’s been replaced by a doll. “Don’t move.”

Toshinori feels numb as he watches his student － his successor, his boy － teeter on the bridge’s edge. The water roars beneath them, almost deafening as it rushes down the river’s length, but otherwise the world is silent. Still. As if time itself is waiting with baited breath to see what will happen. He lowers his outstretched hand slowly, skeletal fingers curling in towards his palm as he lets it fall back to his side. 

“Midoriya,” he says, but his voice is choked. Too soft, even to his own ears, and he fears for a moment that he won’t be heard. “ _Please,_ my boy, just－” He falters. Flails for the right words, the one true thing he can say to bring Midoriya back. To break the influence he’s under. 

Nothing comes. 

“All Might,” Midoriya croaks and Toshinori can see the sheen of tears pooling in his eyes. The terror etched on his face. “Yagi,” he says and his voice cracks on the plea. The first tear rolls down his cheek.

Toshinori wants to be sick. Even as the blank mask slips from Midoriya’s features and the boy’s fear shines through, Toshinori feels no relief. If anything, he feels worse. He wants to reach forward. To pull him into his arms and crush him close until every danger’s passed. But he can’t. He can’t and it feels like he’s been gutted all over again every time Midoriya takes a step further back. Further away from him.

“You have to _fight_ it, my boy. You have to…” Toshinori feels his own eyes grow wet. 

Midoriya looks as if he’s hardly breathing. His face is pale and he whimpers when he takes yet another unwilling step backward. Toshinori curses his loss of power. Curses his useless, weak, failing body. If only he were still in his prime. If only this were a few months earlier. He could save him. He could do something. 

But he can’t. So he’s forced to watch as Midoriya sobs, green lightning crackling across his skin as he ineffectually tries to use One for All to break free from the control. One red shoe touches the edge, heel leaning back over empty space, and Toshinori can’t help the way he lunges forward. 

It’s a mistake.

He knows it the moment he’s taken his first step. He broke the rules, and now he will pay the price. Midoriya’s jaw snaps shut and his bright, green eyes go wide as his body jerks him still and straight. Toshinori won’t get there in time, but he reaches out one bone-thin arm anyway. Midoriya’s body turns with one stiff and awkward motion. Toshinori pushes his legs hard and his throat burns as he yells. Midoriya jumps and Toshinori’s fingers just barely brush the edges of his gray, UA uniform. 

For one horrible, heart-wrenching moment Toshinori is left alone on the bridge. His heart climbs up his throat. He stops breathing. His blood runs cold in his veins. He reaches the edge and every ounce of him hell-bent on surviving － who’d promised Midoriya that he would live － screams at him to stop. The part of him that has been All Might － big and strong and always willing to help no matter what － urges him on. But he knows, deep down, that there isn’t actually a decision to be made. 

Toshinori jumps, using the edge to catapult himself down. He reaches out with both arms, fingers splayed as he falls, and it’s enough. He catches one of Midoriya’s arms, wrapping his fingers around the boy’s wrist, and pulls him close. Midoriya clings almost instinctively to the front of his shirt as Toshinori’s arms wrap protectively around him. 

And they fall.


	14. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated version [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24621205)  
>  **Fandom:** Batman ; [Stray!Dick AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780132)  
>  **Characters:** Dick Grayson, Selina Kyle, Bruce Wayne  
>  **Warnings:** Scars, Injury Mention  
>  [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188369373546/whumptober-2019-no15-scars)

Dick sat in front of the full-length mirror in his room, propped up against the wall rather than hung, and prodded at the wad of gauzy bandages on his shoulder. The scratch had been deep, from the top of his shoulder to his shoulder blade, and had hurt badly enough that he’d nearly cried when Selina cleaned and bandaged it. He prodded it again, wincing when he applied too much pressure. Yet another scar to add to his ever growing collection, not that he minded it much. A life on the streets would have probably done worse to him.

“I know I’ve told you not to poke at your healing cuts, kitten,” Selina said, exasperated and fond all at once. 

He watched her stroll in from the mirror, still dressed in her Catwoman costume though the headpiece and goggles had been pulled off. He stuck his tongue out at her and had his hair tousled in return once she was close enough. One of her cats, small and black, rubbed against his arm before settling itself in his lap. She sat next to him, pressing her should to his before reaching out to scratch behind the cat’s ears. They let the silence sit between them, comfortable but edging on awkward, and listened to the cat’s purring and the pad of paws on wood from the rest of the apartment. 

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually, eyes cast to the floorboards between him and his mirror. Selina hummed, but had lived with him long enough now to know when he wasn’t quite done. “I rushed in and didn’t listen to you and…” He sighed. “And I’m sorry.”

He flicked his gaze up, watching Selina’s reflection, but apart from the slight frown on her face there was nothing to give away her thoughts. When he couldn’t stand to try and guess her mood any longer, tense as he waited for her to speak, he let his eyes roam over his own body. He was still short, not even as tall as Selina yet, and thin. A little awkward and gangly which, while not great, was at least something he shared with a lot of other 13 year olds. And he was scarred.

The most prominent was a reminder of both the worst and one of the best moments of his life. It was a thick, diagonal gash that had required stitches, starting from his navel and moving up and across until it nearly brushed his chest. Tony Zucco had given it to him when he’d gone off to play amateur avenger and failed. Badly. He probably would have bled out if Selina hadn’t found him, tossed in an alley like a piece of trash, bloody and crying and terrified out of his mind. She’d run him to a little clinic where a nice if permanently scowling woman helped him, and then she’d pulled the story from him with all the art of a seasoned con artist. Once he’d been good to move, she’d all but spirited him away to her apartment like he was one of her strays rather than a nine year old orphan.

The memory made him smile, just a little. She’d been furious, more like a spitting cat than the cunning jewel thief Catwoman was known to be. But she’d helped him. Housed and fed and cared for him while he’d been hurt, then offered him a permanent place there when he wasn’t. When he’d told her he was still going after Zucco, she’d chewed him out and then offered her help so long as he promised not to do anything reckless. As long as he waited until she deemed him ready. Then, when Zucco was caught by the Batman a year later, she kept him, scolding him all the while for daring to think she’d kick him out. 

It made him wonder, briefly, where he’d be without her.

“I really am sorry,” he repeated when the quiet had lingered too long between them. He leaned against her, letting his head rest on her shoulder. 

“I know, Dickie. And you’ll make up for it by feeding the cats and emptying the litter boxes for the next two weeks.” Dick scowled, scrunching his nose, and she laughed, wrapping one slender arm carefully around his shoulders and tugging him into a hug. “Maybe then you’ll think about rushing into things instead of, oh I don’t know －” she pressed a clawed finger to her lips, as if thinking it over － “taking the time to get your mentor.” 

“Yeah, I know,” he said with a huff. She ruffled his hair.

“ _Now._ Maybe this time the lesson’ll stick.” She smiled before schooling her features into something more somber and severe. “Seriously, kitten. I mean it. I won’t have you growing up under my roof looking like a mini Szaz.” Dick shuddered at the scarred man’s name. “They’ll think I don’t know how to train my kid. And by ‘they’ I mean Batman.”

Dick rolled his eyes and Selina cuffed him lightly, a tap to the back of his head that made him laugh. She ruffled his hair again before standing, the action so elegant and smooth that it made him a little jealous. He pulled the cat still on his lap into his arms and pushed himself to his feet, trying to mimic some of the way she just seemed to roll up on her legs rather than using her arms to carry her weight. He ended up on his feet with only a slight wobble and his lips pursed. She flashed him a thumbs up regardless. 

“Alright kiddo, comfy clothes time. Get changed and then come grab some dinner before bed. I got takeout from that good place down the street.” 

She laughed when Dick whooped, turning on his heel when the door clicked closed behind her. He set the cat down on his bed, sheets as rumpled as he’d left them that morning, before wandering over to his dresser. He pulled out a pair of loose, black sweatpants and a bright, blue tank top he’d pilfered from a higher end chain store the week before during a refresher lesson on bypassing security systems. Or so Selina told him. They both knew the real reason was because she’d spotted a cat’s eye necklace that she’d been unable to resist getting her claws on. 

_“It’s cat-themed,”_ she’d said, grinning ear to ear. _“It’s important to reinforce our brand. Plus, a little low risk robbery now and again will keep the Bat on his toes.”_

He slowly off the remainder of his Catlad costume before putting on his picked out clothes and padding back out of his room. The black cat followed behind him, bell tinkling with every step. He walked into the apartment’s main space, half tiny kitchen and half living room, and faltered midstep. His eyes widened, gaze darting frantically between Selina dressed in her baggy boxer shorts and a plush, cotton hoodie and the Batman himself looking every bit the terror of Gotham’s underground. 

Batman’s head swung around to face him, scowling. His eyes, two white lenses that unsettled Dick more than anything, seemed to glow in the apartment’s dim lighting. Dick jumped in place, startled when Batman moved to approach him. Selina killed that idea as soon as it made itself known, inserting herself directly in his path, hands on her hips. Dick could imagine the snarl on her lips. 

“While I usually enjoy our night-time rendezvous, I don’t remember inviting you back to my place, Bats.” Her voice was light, almost pleasant, as she spoke, but Dick could hear the edge to it. A sharpened knife ready to cut.

“And I told you,” Batman growled, “that I wouldn’t sit by while you put a child in danger, Selina.”

“I am _not_ putting him in danger,” she hissed. 

“No?” Batman gesture at him over Selina’s shoulder. “Look at him, Selina. His _arms._ ” She opened her mouth to argue, but Batman pressed on. “Do you know any other kid as badly scarred as him? Any other kid who goes out the way you take him on your escapades?” 

Dick tensed, mouth suddenly dry. His pulse pounded in his ears, the rushing roar in his head almost deafening him. The Batman was here for him. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. An old, horribly familiar pressure clogged his throat making it hard to so much as swallow, let alone speak. He was stuck, rooted the floor, helpless and mute. 

“And where would he be if not here, then?” She shoved at Batman’s chest, stance wide. Ready to fight. “On the streets? In the system?”

“Supervised,” Batman said, voice level. 

“He _is_ supervised!” She yelled, throwing her arms up in frustration. 

“He’s hurt.” Selina opened her mouth and snapped it shut, teeth clicking audibly. Batman stood a little taller.

Dick felt distant. Unreal. Surely, he thought, reality had been severed at some point prior to this because he _couldn’t_ be listening to this. There was no possible way he was listening to Selina and Batman argue about this. He sucked in a shuddering breath, but all it did was make him feel lightheaded. The cat at his feet weaved its body between his legs, meowing loudly at him and then at Selina when he didn’t respond. She glanced back at him, attention torn, and paled when she caught sight of him. 

“Kitten?” She turned as she spoke, fully facing him.

He tried to speak. Tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t work. All he could do was sniffle, face flushed as shame overwhelmed him. Selina moved immediately, pushing into his space and hauling him into her arms. She rubbed circles into his back with one hand while the other pressed against the nape of his neck, nudging his face into her shoulder as she murmured comforting nonsense at him the way she sometimes still did after his worst nightmares. 

“It’s alright Dickie. It’s okay. You’re okay.” She pressed a kiss above his forehead.

He trembled, clinging to her with a breathless desperation that clawed at his chest. That seemed to suffocate him. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to be with anyone else, but trying to say so aloud only made him cry when nothing came out. Tears rolled down his cheeks, warm and salty and bitter as they soaked into Selina’s hoodie. He shook his head against her shoulder, desperate to convey the words lodged in his throat. He’d rather die than be separated from the woman who’d become something like a mother to him. 

The floor creaked from behind Selina and the noise startled a sob out of Dick. She pulled him tighter to her as she turned, facing the Batman once more with a glare.

“Selina,” he started, reaching out, but could do nothing more.

“ _You,_ ” she spat, venom dripping from every word. “Get. Out. Now.” Batman tried to speak, but she didn’t give him the chance. “If you so much as come near my kid, Batman, I’ll show you what my claws can _really_ do. Now leave.” 

Batman hesitated, hovering between them and the open window he’d climbed through. Selina ignored him. One of the cats, a tortoiseshell, hissed from its perch on the kitchen counter. By the time Selina pulled Dick over to the couch, bundling him in any and all available blankets, Batman was gone. Dick almost hope he’d never see the vigilante again.


	15. Pinned Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Boku no Hero Academia // My Hero Academia  
>  **Characters:** Uraraka Ochako, Midoriya Izuku  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Injury  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188390873911/whumptober-no-16-pinned-down)

Izuku defeats the villain. Beyond their dimmest hope, their wildest expectations, he succeeds. He springs from the ground, air splitting and shifting in his wake, and roars as he aims his fist at the monster’s face. His body swings, pitching forward with the force, and the villain crumbles with a deafening crack. And then he falls, limp and twisting in the air, and even from so far below it’s obvious his arms are broken. Useless, even if he were conscious. 

Ochako watches, helpless, as it happens. She can’t think. Can’t move. Can’t so much as make a noise as she watches, dread weighing her down harder than even the heavy rubble crushing her legs. She grits her teeth so hard her head hurts and redoubles her efforts. She’s stuck, pinned down by debris, but she scrabbles frantically at the cracked asphalt anyway. She has to _move._ She has to reach him. She has to _save him._

Her fingers pulse with pain as she digs uselessly, nail beds bleeding and torn. Her head pounds in time with the frantic beat of her heart, so bad that her vision wobbles and grays at the edges. Her breath comes in harsh, heavy pants and she can’t feel her legs, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except him. Except the fact that he’s halfway to the ground, speeding faster and faster to his death, and she has to be there. 

Bits of rubble, clawed free in her scrabbling, float around her. Nausea curls in her gut. Sweat beads down her face, sticks her hair to her cheeks and soaks into her hero’s uniform, still remarkably similar to the original she’d designed their first year in U.A. And for a moment she’s there again. A scant few months before their first year － a hero-hopeful taking the entrance exam, pinned by a slab of concrete with the zero-pointer bearing down on her until he leaps forward and blows it back. And then he’s falling, falling, _falling_ and all she can do is push past her exhaustion and nausea, wiggling free from the rubble dislodged by his attack and _try._ Try and save a boy who saved her.

But this isn’t U.A. They aren’t hero-hopefuls anymore, but full-fledged heroes in their own rights with years of experience to sharpen their wits and skills. Wits and skills that fail her when she needs them most. Tears burn her eyes as she forces every ounce of energy she has into freeing herself, but every twist of her spine sends fire shooting up and down the length of vertebrae and nothing through her legs. 

Ochako screams. Pushes and pulls and tears at the ground until her hands are scraped and bruised worse than before. Her throat burns as she yells at him to wake up － _Please, Deku, wake up!_ － but there isn’t anyone around to hear. 

Because Deku was the last hero standing, and this isn’t U.A.


	16. Bleeding Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  
>  **Characters:** Link, Sidon, Unnamed Zora  
>  **Warnings:** Blood, Injury, Death  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188544163826/whumptober-2019-no-23-bleeding-out)

Link screamed as an arrow pierced his thigh. He crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, muddied dirt and grass in his mouth. Everything ached and his breath came in hard, quick, and ragged gasps, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t give them an inch. He fumbled to his hands and knees, crawling and clawing his way forward as he failed to get his legs under him. His gloves tore on a sharp, rocky outcrop. The pain of it bled into the background, drowned out by the deep, throbbing ache in his leg and the warm blood soaking into his torn pants. 

Tears burned his eyes as his pursuers’ footsteps drew nearer. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself forcefully up onto his feet only to fall moments after. He smothered another scream as pain lanced through him, every cut, scrape, and gash lit aflame as he hit the ground. He gasped, dazed and writhing, knowing he need to get up. Move. Run. But unable to comply. He scrabbled feebly at the ground, mud and grass torn up under his fingers but managed little more than aggravating the jagged slice across his palm. 

His chest constricted first with fear. The knowledge he would die, his duties unfulfilled. His memories unrecovered. The princess left to grapple with the Calamity unaided. His fingers curled as if to grasp the hilt of his sword, but no matter how much he yearned for its protection The Master Sword’s energy had been spent and it had dissolved in his hands with no other on hand to replace it. It would not come to him even now. He wasn’t sure if he wanted it to, anyway.

The muddled drum and splash of feet slowed, the stopped altogether as they reached him. It was a group of five, their numbers cut by Link’s hand, barefoot and brightly colored. He purposefully kept his gaze trained on his hands. The grass. Anywhere but their faces. He felt nauseous and slow. Worn and just a touch distant, as if he were watching himself from faraway. A sharp kick to his ribs brought him back to reality.

“Answer,” one of them snarled. 

All he could do was shift, stifling a groan, his voice clogged in his throat as firmly as if he were being choked. Another kick pried a cry free from his lips, and he pressed his face into the grass and mud as his stomach rolled. Maybe it would save him the pain and he’d suffocate. He’d rather that than this nightmare. A clawed hand fisted into the back of his shirt dashed that morbid hope as he was dragged up, the gash in his side like fire on his skin at the sudden, jarring movement. He bit his lip to keep from screaming and felt the brief sharp point of pain that meant he’d bit through it. 

He was manhandled to his feet and then dropped, left to fall to his hands and knees as soon as his arrow-pierced leg failed to hold his weight. He shook, swallowing down the acid that crawled up his throat. His breathing turned shallow, rasping and a little wet. The tip of a lightscale trident touched his chin before jerking his face up to look at the group. Their eyes bored into him, fierce and feral in their anger. The sight of them made him want to run. To hide. To cry. 

His vision grayed at the edges and swam, leaving him dizzy and disoriented even as he tried to focus. A cold numbness crept through him and he couldn’t be sure whether it was from the earlier rainstorm or his own loss of blood. Or perhaps it was the way they looked at him, cold and cutting and so frighteningly different from the friendly warmth he’d seen in them just the night before. He wondered, in some faraway corner of his mind, what he’d done between then and now to deserve this. To be hunted and hurt, his weapons and supplies stripped from him.

Only his instincts had prevented his death back in Zora’s Domain, calling the Master Sword to his hand in time to parry a blow that would have pierced through his chest. His words then had stuck in his throat as the Zora guard had advanced, giving him no time to so much as sign a question to them. He’d dodged most of their attacks, spears and claws and teeth, and wondered if he might have gotten away if only Sidon hadn’t intervened. Sidon who’s arrival had drawn Link up short, breathless and relieved at first. Chilling horror had quickly replaced the feeling when Sidon had drawn himself up, lips pulled back in a snarl, and lunged, grabbing and tossing Link to the floor before biting down on his shoulder after a brief struggle. 

Link had escaped worse for wear from the Domain only after striking out with the Master Sword, called back to his hand after it had skittered away when Sidon’s bulk had knocked him back. The sight of the cleaving cut, deep and clean, on Sidon’s shoulder dragged at Link, the crushing weight of guilt heavy on his shoulders. He might have cut through entirely if not for the way he’d been pinned and the panic muddling his thoughts. He tasted acid and bile and the remnants of his last meal as he thought of Sidon, staggering and armless.

He dragged himself back to the present, the constant, drumming roar in his ears near deafening. He knew, objectively, that the Zora were speaking. To him. To each other. He couldn’t make out so much as a single syllable and their lips were hard to read from his place below them, still on his knees. But he could read their fury in the tense lines of their bodies. In the way their hands clutched at the weapons or their stances shifted. In the way Sidon curled and flexed his clawed fingers, inching closer as if he wanted to wrap them around Link’s throat. 

He struggled not to think of them touching his cheek, claws skimming harmlessly over his skin. 

A hand grabbed a rough handful of his hair, dragging his head back. Exposing his throat. Sidon spoke, muted words distant and unintelligible, but Link had seen that dangerous glint in the Zora Prince’s eyes before. Link had seen him a few times, stolen glimpses of Sidon among the other Zora warriors, the lot of them fierce as they felled any monsters creeping too close to their home. They were eyes that Link never imagined he’d see directed at him, spelling out his fate as clearly as the words he’d been unable to hear.

_Death._

The Zora sword handed to Sidon seemed a little funny. Too small in the Zora Prince’s hands. Perhaps Link had lost too much blood to properly manage his expression, or perhaps it was the horrifying absurdity of the situation. He couldn’t help the way his lips curled up in a small smile. He would have laughed, maybe, if the sword hadn’t swiped across his throat at that moment. 

Link felt the way his skin tugged. The heat of the slice. The hot, wet flow of blood down the exposed skin of his neck and the painful burbling gurgle inside. He was only dimly aware of the lack of pressure on his scalp as his hair was released or the way his body pitched suddenly forward. It seemed as if he’d blinked and the small crowd of Zora had disappeared. Their sentence dealt and Link left to bleed and die alone in the mud. 

It was an eternity and too soon. His lungs burned, choked with mud and blood. The tears he’d held back slipped as he gaped and gasped, face pressed into dirt and mud and rock. He flailed to bring his arms in close, to press his hands to his neck and staunch the blood flow. A useless but automatic gesture. He blinked again and his limbs felt heavy, as if they’d been made of lead. The cold he’d felt earlier seemed to triple, gripping tight to him until he shivered almost nonstop. Darkness clung to his tear-blurred vision, as if tempting him into sleep.

His struggling, gurgling noises died slowly. His eyelids shuttered, slipping closed as he lost the battle to stay awake. To stay alive. Green, glowing light pierced the gray just as he let his eyes closed. He exhaled as a warm hand touched the side of his face and spread. His body went lax as Link slipped into darkness, Mipha’s voice trailing after him. Drawing him slowly back.


	17. Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Fandom:** Young Justice ; [(Dis)placed AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106442)  
>  **Characters:** Bruce Wayne, Dinah Laurel Lance, The Team  
>  **Warnings:** Implied Character Death  
> [Tumblr Version](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/188681770131/whumptober-2019-no29-numb)

“Rob stormed out last night. We thought he went home.”

Bruce blinked. He clenched his jaw. One of his fingers twitched. Numbness spread from the tips of his toes all the way up to his head. He felt unbalanced, as if the ground had opened up beneath his feet and swallowed him whole. His mind reeled. Every endless potential scenario flitted through his mind in quick succession. Every worst case scenario played out in horrifying, vivid detail and didn’t end until the last, lingering image: Dick, dead on the ground with a bullet in his chest and left to rot at the end of some godforsaken alley. 

Dinah’s hand on his shoulder, firm and warm even through the cape, jarred him out of his thoughts and back into the present. She stepped up beside him, the light tread of her boots too loud in the oppressive silence. She squeezed, flashing him a concerned look that he pointedly ignored before setting her eyes back on the teenaged group gathered before them.

The Team squirmed in front of them, unsure and uncomfortable under their combined stares. Kid Flash, the one who’d spoken, looked nervous, scuffing the toe of his boot and shifting from foot to foot. Kaldur’am and Supeboy were still, quiet and stoic but notably confused in the way Kaldur’s lips pursed and Conner’s brows furrowed. Rocket, Zatanna, and Garfield － green and talented, but not yet a full-fledged member of the Team － glanced at each other, out of the loop since they’d been absent from last night’s Team bonding. M’gann hovered inches off the ground, wide-eyed with her hands fisted in the fabric of her skirt. Artemis shifted with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face, but her eyes betrayed her worry.

“What happened?” Dinah’s voice was soft and laced with concern.

“It was just a dumb argument,” Kid Flash started, shrugging but there was a weight to his shoulders that spoke of guilt. “No one meant for it to be bad enough that he’d…” he trailed off, unwilling or, perhaps, unable to finish the thought. 

Bruce opened his mouth to ask something else － _Where else would he go? Did he say anything before he left?_ － but the sharp chirp in his ear stopped him. Without missing a beat, he pressed one hand up to his ear, activating the cowl’s built-in comm piece. Alfred’s voice filtered through, tense and strained in a way Bruce hadn’t heard since he’d been a child dealing with the fresh loss of his parents. 

“Sir, Batgirl has returned from Robin’s last known location in Gotham.” There was a moment of silence, the only sound Alfred’s slow breathing over the line. “There were signs of a fight.” The numbness returned. Bruce felt as if he were floating. “And there was blood,” Alfred said, almost too quiet to hear. 

“Thank you,” he said, an automatic response. “I’ll be there soon.” 

“Br－ Batman?” Dinah turned to him and there must have been something in his stance because her face paled as she tensed. 

He couldn’t bring himself to react, feeling hollowed out. He plucked Dinah’s hand from his shoulder and turned on his heel, exiting the cave through the zeta without so much as a glance at the people left behind. He vaguely heard Dinah try to quell the Team’s sudden flurry of questions, worry thick in their voices, before it faded out at the same time that the zeta’s white light enveloped him.


End file.
